This year we’ve been taking our thruhiking approach to cities. First we thruhiked San Francisco and after that we did Los Angeles. Both hikes were amazing, but neither was perfectly executed. In San Francisco we found ourselves craving more information about the neighborhoods we walked through. We planned to look things up on the way, but even with our phones at-the-ready, it’s hard to learn while you walk. We did lots of research before crossing LA, but we failed to eat enough and finished very hungry. That was truly a mistake, because we passed up SO MUCH amazing food expecting to find even better options around the next corner, and often there wasn’t. Plus, on both of these hikes it was just the two of us. We’ve learned on wilderness thruhikes that community on the trail can be as rewarding as the trail itself.
So, we recently headed to Berlin to give urban thruhiking another go, and this time we had a more complete plan. We researched the city ahead of time. We agreed that when we got hungry we’d stop to eat the FIRST chance we got instead of hunting for better and better options. And, we took three friends along with us to experience the city: Marina, Sabi, and Johannes. We saw a lot, we ate a lot, we drank a record amount of coffee, and most importantly of all: we spent time outside with three friends that we don’t see nearly often enough. Here is our full route, including every stop we took:
The Route:
For 28 years, from 1961 to 1989, Berlin was a divided city. A wall split the east from the west and travel between the two sides was extremely difficult. In 1989 the wall came down and shortly after that East Germany and West Germany were unified. A marked route, The Mauerweg (or Wall Trail), follows the former route of the Berlin Wall. We decided to walk the most urban stretch of the Mauerweg. Including wrong turns and detours, our 26-mile segment ended up being 36 miles of walking, but it was wonderful! We entered the city in a suburban/park-like setting and watched it get increasingly urban. Eventually we were walking through the heart of downtown, observing historical monuments and getting a feel for the city today. And the final stretch had us walking south out of the city experiencing a decreasingly urban landscape. Walking into and out of a city in one trek really lets you feel its scale and character in a way that’s difficult or impossible from a car.
The Food:
We did NOT want to repeat our LA mistake by forgetting to eat. We realized the best way to achieve this would be to stop for food immediately whenever we got hungry. We’d go to the first acceptable restaurant instead of holding out for what could be the best restaurant in the area. We had breakfast at a bakery, we snacked on pastries, we had currywurst and döner, both German specialties, for our first and second lunches. We drank more coffees than we can count and picked up ice cream from a street cart while we walked. We even ate mini plums off a tree. We definitely did food well. The only mistake we made was that we didn’t have breakfast before heading out. We should have seen on our map that it would be about 10 miles of parks and suburbs before we got into the city center, which meant about 10 miles of walking before we could eat Berlin’s food. We all got a little bit hungry during these early miles, and that hunger was avoidable: we should have just eaten at our hotel before hitting the trail.
The Camaraderie:
Our friends, Marina, Johannes, and Sabi joined us for the entire trek. For the final 15 miles, fellow thruhiker Quadzilla (aka Jack Jones) joined too. As much as we like each other, it’s always nice to share an experience with others. Marina, Johannes, and Sabi were our neighbors for four years when we lived in Göttingen, Germany, but now we live in three different countries (USA, Austria, and Germany). Just like on a wilderness thruhike, talking about the route together, deciding where to take breaks together, and laughing about the trip together only added to the experience. We collectively came up with a game to play that further added to the experience: cat counting. Each person got three points for spotting a live cat and one point for spotting a graphical cat. The two of us would not have come up with such a fun game alone.
Something else that happens on a wilderness thruhike is you never know who you’ll cross paths with or when you’ll bump into somebody you know. 22 miles into this hike we remembered that thruhiking legend Quadzilla, who has completed the Calendar-Year Triple Crown, recently moved to Berlin! We shot him a DM and instantly heard back that we had another hiker to join us for the remainder of the route:
We were impressed that in less than 1.5 years of living in Berlin, Quadzilla’s German competence seems to be better than ours became after four years of living in Germany. All around, doing this hike with others added to the experience by bringing in new talking points, more perspectives, and a chance to build and strengthen relationships that are longer-lasting than a simple walk across a city.
Overall:
We walked an amazing route. We ate well. We laughed with old and new friends. This urban thruhike had all of the pieces that make any thruhike amazing, it was just in a different setting. So, our conclusion is that we have figured out a few of the components required for a successful urban thruhike. Unsurprisingly, they’re not too different from what’s required for a great thruhike in the wilderness:
- An interesting route
- Plenty of food
- People to share the experience with
And we’re not done experimenting. We have more urban thruhikes ahead on our calendar: next stop, Minneapolis!
Video:
For more, here’s a video of our entire trek:
